The present invention relates to a surgical tool useful by surgeons of varied disciplines, but particularly useful during surgery in cutting, gripping or perforating bones, soft tissues and the like.
Rongeurs and similar surgical tools have been known and employed by surgeons for gouging away bone during the surgical operation. Various rongeurs are adapted to cut, grip, chip or sometimes merely hold onto the bone structure or soft tissue as may be necessary. For cutting purposes, the known rongeurs have been fabricated with a jaw-like configuration at the end of an elongated body. These rongeurs provide for the jaws to be opened and closed, such as by plier-type gripping handles, by the ready manipulation by the surgeon. The elongated body allows the surgeon to reach into the surgical area where the cutting or gripping has to be performed.
In providing the open-close ability to the jaws of the known rongeurs, one jaw component has been constructed to slide relative to the other. Typical rongeurs such as found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,752,161 and in the Zimmer News Release of October, 1966, rely upon a T-slot configuration whereby a tongue on one slidable member slides in a groove in the other member, the ends of which form the cutting jaws. While this construction is satisfactory as far as functionability and imparting adequate strength to the jaws for the sometimes difficult bone cutting steps, there are some shortcomings also. For instance, bone chips, tissue or undesirable debris may enter the T-slot, which would cause the instrument to stick and possibly jam during the operation. In addition, the T-slot (tongue and groove) structure is limited in its strength. The typical tongue portion includes a somewhat narrow shank connected to the T-bar. Any unexpected and excessive lateral shear or bending forces transmitted along this tongue during a bone cutting operation may cause a structural failure, with the instrument being rendered useless. Accordingly, these deficiencies in the known rongeurs or like surgical tools indicate that there is room for further improvement.